Feather & Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify feathers by species — with feather type, plumage, colours, size, habitat, and how to tell them apart in the field.
Purple Martin
The largest North American swallow, with males showing an all-over glossy blue-black sheen and females a duller gray-brown, pale-bellied pattern.
songbird
Harris's Hawk
A dark chestnut-brown desert hawk notable for its social, cooperative hunting behavior, with a bold black-and-white tail pattern and chestnut shoulder patches.
raptor
Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker
A small, widespread Asian woodpecker with a grey-brown crown and crisply barred back, closely resembling other pygmy woodpeckers across its broad range.
woodpecker
Mourning Collared Dove
A widespread African dove with a pale grey head, warm pinkish-brown breast, and a crisp black half-collar edged in white across the back of the neck.
dove pigeon
Lesser Rhea
A smaller relative of the Greater Rhea found in Patagonia and the high Andes, with soft mottled brown plumage flecked with pale feather tips that give it a speckled appearance.
other
Common Murre
A slender, upright seabird resembling a small penguin in posture, with chocolate-brown upperparts and clean white underparts, breeding in dense colonies on narrow sea cliffs.
seabird
Chimney Swift
A cigar-shaped aerial bird with uniformly sooty gray-brown plumage and stiff, spine-tipped tail feathers used to brace against vertical surfaces.
other
Southern Ground Hornbill
The Southern Ground Hornbill is a large, mostly terrestrial hornbill of southern African savanna, easily told by its black plumage, bare red facial skin, and heavy dark bill. It walks in small family groups across open grassland hunting for animal prey.
other
Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker
A small East Asian woodpecker with a softer, browner overall tone than its pygmy woodpecker relatives, common in wooded parks and gardens in Japan and neighboring regions.
woodpecker
Short-eared Owl
A wide-ranging owl of open grassland and marsh, notable for hunting in daylight on buoyant, moth-like wingbeats, with streaked buffy-brown plumage and ear tufts so small they are rarely visible.
owl
Lesser Spotted Eagle
A compact, dark brown migratory eagle of eastern European forests, distinguished from its larger relative the Greater Spotted Eagle by narrower wings and a paler crescent at the base of the outer primaries.
raptor
Eurasian Wren
A tiny, round, rufous-brown songbird with fine dark barring across its wings and tail, and a characteristic short tail often held cocked upright, belying an unexpectedly loud voice.
songbird
Eurasian Pygmy-Owl
Europe's smallest owl, a boreal forest specialist that hunts small birds and rodents largely by day. Its feathers are gray-brown to rufous with crisp white spotting and a narrowly barred tail.
owl
Hadada Ibis
A loud, common African ibis best known for its raucous dawn call and the iridescent bronze-green patch on its otherwise plain grey-brown wings.
wading bird
Spanish Imperial Eagle
A rare Iberian eagle marked by a bold, creamy-white leading-edge patch on the upperwing that stands out sharply against otherwise blackish-brown body plumage.
raptor
Eurasian Curlew
Europe and Asia's largest curlew, with a long downcurved bill and streaky grayish-brown plumage, best known for its evocative bubbling call across moorlands and mudflats.
shorebird
Tropical Screech-Owl
The Tropical Screech-Owl is a small, widespread Neotropical owl with cryptic grey-brown or rufous plumage and small ear tufts that help it blend against tree bark.
owl
Spot-winged Falconet
A small, distinctive South American falcon of arid scrub and Chaco woodland, showing white-spotted wings against brown-grey upperparts and streaked buffy underparts.
raptor
Sooty Shearwater
A dark, uniformly sooty-brown shearwater whose silvery-white underwing linings provide a striking flash of contrast during its long, powerful ocean flights.
seabird
Greylag Goose
A bulky gray-brown goose, ancestor of most domestic geese breeds, recognized by its heavy orange-pink bill and a pale bluish-gray patch on the forewing.
waterfowl
Hazel Grouse
A small, secretive forest grouse of northern Eurasia, best known for its finely patterned gray-brown plumage and a bold black-and-white throat patch in males.
gamebird
Morepork
New Zealand's small native owl, named for its call and known to Maori as ruru, with dark brown feathers mottled with pale buff spotting and streaked underparts.
owl
Marsh Owl
The Marsh Owl is a plain, tawny-brown ground-nesting owl of African grasslands and marshes, distinguished by its inconspicuous ear tufts and preference for open, low vegetation.
owl
Galapagos Dove
An island endemic found only in the Galapagos, warm reddish-brown overall with an iridescent patch on the neck and a strikingly pale blue ring of bare skin around the eye.
dove pigeon